If you want to see your exam, the exam review
will be on Wednesday, Nov 5, at 18:00, room 221.

Oct 29

I have already sent the grades to the Masters
office. Congratulations for your performance and for your participation
during the course. I hope you enjoyed the course as I enjoyed teaching it.
Good luck on your future assignments!

For those of you that would like to know more
about the conference in which Bernanke made his famous comment about the
actions of the Federal Reserve during the 1930s, here is the conference
announcement.

Another important measure of risk is the spread
between the yields of corporate bonds rated Baa and Aaa by Moody’s. According
to Moody’s classification, Baa bonds are considered medium grade, subject to
moderate credit risk, and Aaa bonds are the highest quality bonds, subject to
the lowest credit risk. Higher spread indicates higher perception of risk.
The time series available is long; there is data since 1919. Take a look.
Notice that the highest spread occurred in the 1930s and the second highest
spread in the financial crisis of 2008.

The Nobel Prize in Economics has just been
announced: the prize goes to Jean Tirole, “for his analysis of market power
and regulation.” It fits very well to our discussion today on the financial
crisis of 2008!

Oct 9

The room of the final exam has already been
assigned: the exam will be in Salão Nobre.

One way in which the government may increase the
upper limit of the debt-to-GDP ratio is to direct investors for its own debt.
This action is sometimes called financial repression. Carmen Reinhart, Jacob
Kirkegaard and Belen Sbrancia talk about this in this
paper, also listed below. Take a look.

Sep 30

There is also a very informative interview with
Sargent for the Morningstar Advisor on Moodle
(look for Sargent Interview Morningstar Advisor on the section Readings on
Moodle). Interesting point, Francisco Torralba, who interviews Sargent, was
my TA when I used to teach Macroeconomics at Chicago!

Sep 29

Take a look at this interview
with Sargent, on financial crises and other topics (the interview is also
listed below, among the readings). The comments on the unpleasant monetarist
arithmetic are directly related to our classes on monetary policy and fiscal
policy. These topics will be discussed today and on Wednesday.

For the first class, read the text by Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in
Society.” There is a link to the text below (the text is free if you connect
from the network of Nova). This text is a classic! It gives the whole idea on
the relation of prices, including prices of financial assets, to fluctuations
of the economy. The text explains the role of prices for the use resources in
the best way. And all of this without equations.

Jul 9

The first class will be on Wednesday, September 10, 16:00-17:30, room
A223. See you there!